The house was silent until Kulthum shut the front door and turned the lock.

"Kulthum!" Her mother's voice bellowed through Kulthum, nearly rattling her bones. "Is that you?"

Kulthum's mum was too impatient to wait for an answer. Kulthum heard feet stomp above her as her mum and dad rushed out of their room and onto the upstairs landing.

Kulthum's breath felt shaky as she inhaled and looked up. "Yes."

The lines on her father's face were deeper and harder, like he was a loaf of artisan bread, and they had baked into his skin over time. However, all those lines seemed to melt away when he smiled at her and sighed, "Alhamdulillah".

Kulthum's mum didn't smile at her. Her mother's stare was deadly. She looked like an assassin who had just locked eyes on her target. She didn't blink or move until Kulthum, feeling like a mouse backed into a corner by a cat's paw, looked away.

"Where the hell have you been?" Her mother roared into action. She swung her body down the stairs, her father close behind.

Questions fired out of her mother like bullets from a machine gun. "What have you been doing? Why weren't you answering your phone? Where have you been? Do you know how long we've waited for you to come home? Get in the living room! Now!" her mother ordered with a snap of her finger.

Kulthum shuffled into the living room.

Her mind was cluttered with questions.

Her parents were angry with her, but their anger was premature. She hadn't told them anything yet.

We've been waiting for you. What the hell does mum mean by we've been waiting for you?

Her parents weren't expecting her. Or at least, they shouldn't have been. Kulthum didn't tell them she had left school, and she hadn't notified them of her arrival at the train station. She had taken a taxi home.

Did Asiya snitch on me? No. She wouldn't have. Asiya promised to not say anything. Asiya keeps her promises.

Kulthum felt her blood run cold as her eyes zoned in on the coffee table, or rather what was on it.

Her university had only sent her a scanned copy of the letter they were sending home three days ago. They hadn't even paid for a first-class stamp.

The white envelope bearing a blue second-class stamp next to her university's crest on the coffee table shouldn't have been there.

Kulthum's train home was supposed to have been faster than the British postal service. Do people not send letters anymore? Had stamps really become so expensive that there were no first-class letters to be processed? She knew she had sinned, but the letter arriving two days earlier than it was supposed to didn't feel like a punishment; it just felt cruel.

The envelope had been torn open. The letter had been unfolded, flattened and placed next to it. Meaning that her parents knew everything. They knew about the expulsion. That she hadn't been in school when she was meant to have been. That she hadn't been at home when she was meant to be, and more importantly, why.

They must've been panicking over her absence.

Well, maybe her dad had been.

Her mum looked like she hadn't panicked at all. If she had, all her mum's worries must've migrated the minute Kulthum stepped foot into the house.

"Kulthum, where have you been?" her dad asked. His tone wasn't as soft as his stare.

"With a friend," Kulthum answered quietly.

Her dad simply nodded. The letter was clearly making her late return home a minor detail on her parent's agenda. The letter had juggled her parent's priorities. Her safety wasn't a concern, not when they had a bigger fish to fry.

"Kulthum, we are going to give you a chance to explain," her dad said in a measured tone.

"Exactly five minutes," her mum snapped.

Kulthum's heartbeat began to stammer. Her words felt stale amongst the foam and bile building in her mouth. She didn't speak. She couldn't speak. She needed to swallow her words down to a place where she could keep them safe.

"Hay!" her mum cried as she slapped her hands together in frustration. "Talk now! Talk!"

"Kulthum, do you understand that your school wrote to us?" her dad asked. "Do you understand how serious the situation is? Do you understand the potential implications of their accusations?"

"They're not accusations," Kulthum muttered.

Only the hands on the living room clock shifting could be heard after Kulthum's statement.

Kulthum watched her parent's faces contort as her sentence wriggled in their minds. Her parent's faces shifted through emotions like they were a television being switched between drama channels.

Kulthum almost laughed as her mind conjured up her parent's inner dialogue.

Did our daughter really just confess to–

"Drugs!" The word tore out of her mum's throat as she threw her hands in the air. "Ya Allah! Kulthum! Have you lost your damn mind? Drugs!"

Her mum tossed herself around the room like a ragdoll. "Drugs! Kulthum! Drugs!"

All her mum's veins had risen to the surface of her brown-sugar skin. They were thick and long and stretched across her neck and hands as if they were trying to keep her mother, who was about to pop, sewn together.

Kulthum picked at the skin around her fingernails. "I mean, technically, it was only wee–"

A long vein cracked across her mum's forehead, nearly splitting her into two. "Do you honestly think the type of drug matters!"

"Sharifah, please calm down," Kulthum's dad said before standing up and steering her mum back into her chair.

Their movements looked so fluid and natural because it was a dance her parents had done since she was a kid.

Despite the fact that her heart was striking itself against her chest, Kulthum still rolled her eyes at her parent's behaviour. Typical, she said to herself.

Kulthum's mum could spit sparks of fire in everyday situations. During times of discourse, she was practically a flame thrower. Chaotic and dramatic. Overcommitted to her role as the bad cop. While Kulthum's dad played the good cop. He pandered to everyone and always tried to keep the situation calm.

Her mum picked up the letter and used it to fan herself.

"Mum. It's no big deal. It's honestly not worth the stress or dramatics," Kulthum said, ignoring how her heart was swelling and feeling crammed in her chest.

Students smoking 'accessible' low-class drugs wouldn't have been an issue at any other university.

If Kulthum had gone to a big, almost public-feeling university that still carried prestige, like the one her older sister Asiya had gone to, the security guard would've probably asked for a drag. At most, the university behavioural council would've given her a warning and verbally reprimanded Kulthum for smoking on school grounds.

But no, she had to pick a small, prestigious university that was surrounded by nothing. In a university that was so small and isolated, university officials had time to monitor and police their students because the landscape offered nothing else for them to do.

Her ex-university was also so small that a case like hers could rock the reputation of the institution and reduce its royalty to a rank that even peasants wouldn't want to be in.

Her case would be a scandal. It would ruin their cash flow.

"Uh uh," her dad tutted. "I would suggest you choose your words wisely, Kulthum. This situation, regardless of what you think, is severe. It's not just about your future career, your academic record, or even the results of your school's hearing. It's about your health and what those things can do to it! We raised you to have choices. I thought we raised you to make better choices. I never thought this is what you would choose."

Her father's voice was level but cold. His words landed over Kulthum like an avalanche of snow and caused an ache to tremor through her chest.

"Honestly, what were you thinking? The drugs, your behaviour, the way you're speaking, it's all disgusting," her dad said in a gritty voice.

Kulthum hadn't been ready for his attack. She had expected her dad to, at most, only supply her mum with arrows but not launch any himself.

Her dad's voice showered over Kulthum painfully, like she was at a windy beach being pelted with sharp grains of sand and broken shells.

Kulthum placed a hand over her heart as the roof of her mind began to collapse under her thoughts.

Each thought caused Kulthum's chest to tighten like a ribbon being pulled through the holes of a corset. She was finding it hard to breathe. To keep up. To make sense of her thoughts and separate what was rational and what was irrational. Her mind was forming opinions that weren't based on reality, and her heart jumped to those wild conclusions.

There was so much she didn't know and could no longer understand. She hadn't been prepared for this. The letter had arrived early. This wasn't how things were supposed to go.

Her parent's behaviour was different. Her dad hadn't looked at her since they had entered the living room. His gaze had been flickering between the floor and Kulthum's hyperventilating mother. Everything was completely wrong. Her dad wasn't playing the role of the good cop. Her mum was close to tears that would extinguish her flame. Her parents weren't playing a game. They weren't playing at all.

"Oh my gosh. Shut up." Kulthum whispered weakly as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

Her voice was small, but her mum's ears were sharp.

"Excuse me?" The words whistled out of her mum's mouth.

Kulthum blinked. She thumped her chest lightly as though she was trying to jumpstart it like a car engine and forced herself to breathe, properly.

Kulthum tried to meet her dad's eye, but he moved his head, so his eyes skidded across the room away from the corner Kulthum was standing in. Her brain added his actions to her feelings of doom like a formula.

Everything felt unfamiliar to Kulthum. She hadn't predicted this happening. How could she fix this? Yes, her university's accusation was severe, but she hadn't even been criminally charged. They weren't going to report her to the police. Did they read that part of the letter? She hadn't been expelled, yet. There would be a hearing.

Her mum was supposed to rant and rage, and her dad was supposed to calm everyone, including Kulthum, down.

This wasn't how things were supposed to go.

Kulthum wasn't meant to get caught.

The drugs hadn't even been hers. They weren't hers.

There we have it, folks. 🫣. The reason for Kulthum's not yet expulsion! I'm surprised and lowkey super gassed that no one guessed this! 🤭. Hehehe. It makes me excited for the other 'surprises' coming in this book. 😙. Clearly, not everything is as it seems, though. 👀. I mean, the drugs weren't hers. 🧐. I would love to know what you think about this chapter! InshAllah, I'll see you on the next one! 🤍.

Alhamdulillah: Arabic term. It means praise be to God/We thank God.

Allah: The One God.